Global Brass shares climb 20% in NYSE debut

May 24, 2013|By Becky Yerak | Tribune staff reporter

(Global Brass)

Shares of Global Brass & Copper Holdings Inc. closed up more than 20 percent Thursday on its first day of trading as a public company.

Global Brass, trading on the NYSE with the ticker BRSS, priced 7 million common shares at $11 a share on Wednesday. In the first day of trading, shares traded between $11.75 and $13.99, closing at $13.25.

The Schaumburg-based distributor and processor of copper and brass products has been owned by East Coast private equity firm KPS Capital Partners, which retains more than 60 percent of its shares.

Global Brass, which was formed in 2007 to acquire the global metals business of Olin Corp., had originally filed a registration statement for an initial public offering in late 2011.

On May 13, it announced that it would sell 9.4 million shares at an expected price of $15 to $17 apiece, with KPS selling a stake and with the company not getting any of the proceeds. But the size of the IPO was quickly scaled back.